TTK Prestige forays into home cleaning market
The move comes as TTK seeks newer avenues of revenue growth and faces stiff competition in the cookware market
Bengaluru: TTK Prestige, the maker of cookware and stoves, has decided to step out of the kitchen for the first time in more than 60 years.
India’s largest kitchen appliances brand, part of the Chennai-based TTK Group, will now lend its name to a clutch of cleaning products ranging from air purifiers to what it claims to be India’s only electric mop.
The move comes as TTK seeks newer avenues of revenue growth and faces stiff competition (from Hawkins Cookers Ltd and others) in the cookware market. The home cleaning products market is pegged at an annual ₹ 2,500 core and is growing 15-20% per year.
“We expect 5% of our revenue next year to come from this," said T.T. Jagannathan, chairman of TTK Group.
Cracking the home cleaning products market won’t be easy, industry observers said.
“Getting into an unrelated category is not easy," said Arvind K. Singhal, founder and chairman of consulting firm Technopak Advisors Pvt Ltd. “Prestige certainly has a very strong brand connect in kitchen appliances but as far as the home cleaning is concerned, I don’t know. It is a fragmented, unorganised market."
“Vacuum cleaners are the exception here. But vacuum cleaners haven’t really taken off in India anyway," Singhal added.
Shoppers can buy the home cleaning products, launched under the Prestige Clean Home banner, through 50,000 retail outlets and online.
With a sleek red and silver body, powerful motor, spraying device and drip tray, Prestige’s electric mop is nothing like the regular yarn and pole gadget found in many Indian homes.
It doesn’t work like one either. For starters, you don’t need to lug along a bucket. All you need to do is push a nozzle, release a quick spray of water and whisk it over the spill.
“It has been made and developed in-house," Jagannathan said, adding that the company will patent the product.
The entire product range — which includes floor polishers (priced at ₹ 19,995), vacuum cleaners (priced at ₹ 5,995), steam cleaners ( ₹ 9,995) and the electric mop (yet to be priced) — makes the cleaning experience more hygienic, the company claimed.
“It doesn’t require you to touch the dirt," unlike with the regular broom-and-mop used in most Indian households, said Chandry Kalro, the managing director of TTK Prestige.
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